'I have lost my father in battle, my sister to Elizabeth Woodville's spy, my brother-in-law to Elizabeth Woodville's executioner, my nephew to her poisoner, and now my son to her curse...'The gripping and ultimately tragic story of Anne Neville and her sister Isabel, the daughters of the Earl of Warwick, the most powerful magnate in England through the Cousins' Wars. In the absence of a son and heir, he ruthlessly uses the two girls as pawns but they, in their own right, are thoughtful and powerful actors.Against the backdrop of the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne turns from a delightful child growing up in intimacy and friendship with the family of Richard Duke of York to become ever more fearful and desperate as her father's enemies turn against her, the net closes in and there is, in the end, simply nowhere she can turn, no one she can trust with her life.

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About the Author

Philippa Gregory is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Many of her works have been adapted for the screen including The Other Boleyn Girl. Her most recent novel, The Last Tudor, is now in production for a television series. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She founded Gardens for the Gambia, a charity to dig wells in poor rural schools in The Gambia, and has provided nearly 200 wells. She welcomes visitors to her website PhilippaGregory.com.

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I love the way Philippa Gregory transports you into the time period so effortlessly. You feel like this way of life is as things are... I love that she writes from the perspective of the women of the time and women from various sides of the politics. Thank you Philippa for giving these women a voice.

Not a subject area I usually read but did so for a book discussion session.Along with others in the group I had mixed reactions.Best of these is that I really admire the Author's work in researching the background and then having the confidence to fill in the gaps and make some necessary conjectures.

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Sadie McCarley

5.0 out of 5 starsAnne's hard-earned life lessons

5 July 2018 - Published on Amazon.com

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I used to regard Anne as a weak woman, sickly, and very submissive. I did wonder how she could possibly have allowed Richard to parade and favor his niece right in front of her, and now I understand. Once you really explore the emotions Anne probably felt in response to her life's events, her fate seems a natural consequence. Frustration, futility, and disenchantment are abound in this book- but not without heavy doses of hope and passion.

Here's the thing. I love history. A lot. I love when Philippa Gregory novels. A lot. The fact that her books are historical novels makes me nearly giddy. I might love Gregory's novels to the point I almost hate them just a little bit, too. The Kingmaker's Daughter was no exception.

The Kingmaker's Daughter is the story of Anne Neville and her road to becoming queen. It starts when she is 8 years old and ends when she is 28. She starts off as her father's pawn, a way to move higher in importance by marrying her off to the best offer. Her father uses her to try and win back his power over the king after King Edward's (of the York side) wife and her family steal his influence away. She is married to Prince Edward of the Lancaster side as a way to buy a tie to the kingship. After her husband dies and the Lancaster line is officially ended, she loses nearly all her potential power and influence.

It is at this moment she starts to make choices for herself. She knows there are very few options to gain independence for herself, so she takes the next best road and marries someone she cares a great deal for, and eventually loves. Richard. I never doubted for a second that they came to love each other. To begin with, it almost feels as though the marriage is one of purpose. She wants to leave the house of her sister and brother-in-law, and Richard wants access to the land, wealth, and power her name brings. But by the end of the novel, there was love there.

The princes in the tower are touched upon, and yet nothing is definitively said about their fate. I like that Gregory doesn't try to take a side. She keeps that mystery going and I appreciate that.

In the past 3 novels, I had come to form an opinion of Anne Neville and it wasn't the greatest. Even though I saw her as a product of those around her, I wasn't overly fond of her character in the last three books. However, when it's finally her turn to tell the story, I fell in love with her and started to despise characters I had loved previously.

This is what I love most about The Cousins' War series. In one novel, a character is painted as horrible, but the next makes him or her lovable. There isn't one "villain" you can root against. They are all good and bad. Gregory has taken the stories we read in history books and made them into people. I can't get enough of it.

The Kingmaker's Daughter is yet another brilliant addition to The Cousins' War series and I'm hopelessly upset I have to wait another year to hear Elizabeth of York's story.

The Kingmaker's Daughter provides another viewpoint into the War of the Roses, this time via Richard Neville, Duke of Warwick's family. His two daughters, Isabel and Anne, were like many children of their time, used as political pawns to grasp power. The story follows the Duke's early fall from power when his puppet King Edward throws off his influence by jilting his arranged political marriage and instead marries Elizabeth Woodvile for love. Duke Richard then begins decades of espionage in an effort to obtain the throne via one of his daughters, with King Edward's brothers displaying varying levels of loyalty.

After reading The White Queen, the story told from Elizabeth Woodville's perspective, it was interesting to read the same circumstances told again from Anne Neville's perspective. History requires a bit more filling in of blanks on Ms. Gregory's part for a meaty tale of the latter, but I did enjoy how her able storytelling made it possible to engender sympathy for both parties, though they were certainly competitors in the most vital sense. The novel keeps a good pace, and though it should not be used as a historical reference, as many details are changed or omitted to help with an engaging storyline, it was a riveting read. I highly recommending reading both novels, as one of the great pleasures I found was the sympathy I had for each character and their story.

3.0 out of 5 starsWorth a Read; well done and interesting POV, but annoying main character

19 July 2017 - Published on Amazon.com

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WHAT I LIKED:What I liked the most was the really believable POV depicted throughout Anne Neville. The build up of her life and the experiences she had that lead her to be a Queen of England- it was well written, it was entertaining, and Anne Neville's view of history, especially around Richard her husband, is really refreshing.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:Anne Neville and Isabelle Neville. I loved seeing the world through Anne's eyes, but I could not bring myself to like her or her sister Isabelle. With every page, I found myself more annoyed or frustrated with their characters.

Maybe that was Philippa Gregory's goal- to make them more frustrating and unlikable next to the White Queen & Princess. I don't really know, but I do think this is worth the read at the end of the day. I give it 3/5 stars instead of 4/5 because even though it was well done, I found the overall read of this book more exhausting than energizing.

I found The Kingmaker's Daughter to be an interesting look into the War of the Roses, showing the same events explored in The Red Queen and The White Queen from yet another perspective. However, whereas I feel that The Red Queen was at times too introspective and heavy-handed with character-driven plot, The Kingmaker's daughter falls to the other extreme. In The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance, Gregory did a masterful job of writing characters whose motivations and loyalties were deeply conflicted, and unclear even to the characters themselves. In The Kingmaker's Daughter, loyalties are equally messy, but without the same introspective quality, the characters come off as inconsistent instead of conflicted. Anne often seemed to change her mind about things in the middle of conversations, and while these changes would make sense if given the proper context of years of loyalty to one person or another, without context they seem almost flighty.

In short, I did enjoy learning more about other players in the War of the Roses, but wish we had gotten to see more of Gregory's thoughts of what might have been going on inside the characters' heads!